YouTube MCP

YouTube MCP is a free MCP server that gives your AI agent seven tools for YouTube. You can search videos, pull view counts and comments, list a channel’s uploads, and run YouTube Analytics reports for your own channel, all from a prompt. It can also make changes, such as updating a video’s title or adding it to a playlist, with a confirmation step for anything destructive. It is its own VS Code extension, it runs on your machine, and it uses your own Google account.

There is no server to host and no config file to edit. You install the extension, sign in to Google once, and the tools appear in every agent it finds: VS Code Copilot, Claude Code, Cursor, OpenAI Codex, Google Gemini, Windsurf, Continue.dev, and Cline.

What you can ask

  • “Find the ten most viewed videos about MCP servers from this year”
  • “How many views and likes does this video have?”
  • “List the latest uploads on my channel”
  • “What are people saying in the comments on my last video?”
  • “Change the title and description of my latest video”
  • “Add this video to the Tutorials playlist”

The seven YouTube MCP tools

Tool What it does What you can pass
youtube_search Search for videos, channels, or playlists Search terms, result type, a channel to search within, sort order, a published-after date, up to 50 results
youtube_get_videos Details and public statistics for up to 50 videos: views, likes, comments, duration Video IDs
youtube_get_channel A channel’s details, statistics, and uploads playlist A channel ID or handle. Leave both out for your own channel
youtube_list_playlists The playlists of a channel A channel ID. Leave it out for your own
youtube_list_playlist_items The videos in a playlist The playlist ID. Use a channel’s uploads playlist to list all its videos
youtube_list_comments Top-level comment threads on a video The video ID, newest or most relevant first, up to 100 threads
youtube_analytics_report A YouTube Analytics report for your channel Dates, metrics such as views and watch time, dimensions such as day or video, filters, sort

The YouTube admin tool

Changes go through one tool, youtube_admin, with named actions.

Action What it does
update_video Change a video’s title, description, tags, privacy, or category
create_playlist Create a playlist
add_to_playlist Add a video to a playlist, at a position if you give one
remove_from_playlist Take a video out of a playlist (needs confirmation)
reply_to_comment Reply to a comment
delete_comment Delete a comment (needs confirmation)

Destructive actions need explicit confirmation

remove_from_playlist and delete_comment only run with confirm: true. Without it the server changes nothing and returns a warning, so the agent has to ask you first. Reading never needs it.

Three things people use it for

A competitor scan

Ask for the top videos on a topic from the last six months, then for the statistics of each. The agent runs one search and one statistics call and gives you a table of titles, channels, views, and publish dates.

A weekly channel report

Ask for views, watch time, and subscribers gained by day for the last week against the week before. youtube_analytics_report returns the rows and the agent writes the summary.

Reading the comments for you

Ask what viewers asked for in the comments on a video. The agent reads the threads and groups them, which is quicker than scrolling when a video has hundreds.

Set it up in five steps

A setup wizard opens the first time you launch the extension. OAuth is the usual choice.

  1. Create a project in the Google Cloud Console, or pick one you already have.
  2. Enable the YouTube Data API v3 and the YouTube Analytics API under APIs and Services.
  3. Create an OAuth client ID of type Desktop app.
  4. Paste the client ID and secret into the wizard.
  5. Sign in to Google in the browser window that opens, and authorize.

If your consent screen is set to External, add yourself as a test user first. The wizard also accepts Application Default Credentials from the gcloud CLI and a service account key.

Analytics reports cover the channel of the Google account you sign in with. Search and public video data work for any channel.

Using YouTube MCP with Claude Code, Cursor and other agents

You do not add a server entry by hand. The extension writes the registration for each agent it finds: ~/.claude.json for Claude Code, ~/.cursor/mcp.json for Cursor, ~/.codex/config.toml for OpenAI Codex, ~/.gemini/settings.json for Gemini, and the matching files for Windsurf, Continue.dev, and Cline. VS Code Copilot picks it up through the VS Code API.

Open a new session in any of them and the tools are in the tool list. To limit which agents get them, switch the others off in VS Code settings under youtubeMcp.agents. The command “YouTube MCP: Remove from All Agents” takes every registration back out.

Limits

  • Every call counts against your project’s YouTube Data API quota: 10,000 units a day by default, and one search costs 100.
  • Analytics reports are for your own channel only. Other channels expose public statistics, not analytics.

Common questions

Is YouTube MCP free?

Yes. The extension is free and MIT licensed.

Is there an official YouTube MCP server?

Not that we could find. Google’s developer documentation lists MCP servers for Workspace products, and YouTube is not among them. This is an independent extension that calls the YouTube APIs with your own sign-in.

Do I need a YouTube channel?

Only for the analytics tool. Search, video statistics, playlists, and comments work without one.

Does it work with Claude Code and Cursor?

Yes. Both are registered automatically, along with Copilot and five other agents.

Where does my data go?

Nowhere except Google. The MCP server runs on your own machine and calls Google’s API with your credentials. There is no telemetry, and the sign-in token is kept in VS Code’s encrypted secret storage.

Use it without VS Code

YouTube MCP is also on npm, for Claude Code, Cursor, or any other MCP client. It needs Node.js 22 or newer.

npx -y @renzo.johnson/youtube-mcp

In Claude Code, one command adds it:

claude mcp add youtube-mcp -- npx -y @renzo.johnson/youtube-mcp

Outside VS Code there is no setup wizard, so the server takes your Google sign-in from the environment. It uses the first one it finds: an OAuth client ID, secret, and refresh token in GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID, GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET, and GOOGLE_OAUTH_REFRESH_TOKEN; a key file named in GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS; or the gcloud CLI’s Application Default Credentials. The npm package page has the config block for Claude Code and Cursor.

Install it

YouTube MCP is free and MIT licensed.

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